


The Mechanics of Comfort

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:24:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this inception_kink prompt: "Someone give me crying!/sobbing!Arthur. Doesn't really matter why, though it'd probably be easier to keep him in character if it wasn't something Cobb did, but it's up to the author. Or maybe Arthur's mom/grandparent/sibling died? I don't know. I just want some really good Arthur/Cobb hurt/comfort, in that order."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mechanics of Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: It’s nothing to do with me.  
> Notes: Set post-Inception. Minor OC death.

Dom is woken up at 4a.m. up to the phone ringing. Arthur’s, not his own.  
  
“God, don’t you ever put that thing on vibrate?”   
  
“That’s what she said,” Arthur yawns, laughing sleepily.  
  
“You’re like a comedy alarm clock,” Dom mutters, burying his face in Arthur’s hair and pulling him close. Hoping like hell against hope that for once, Arthur will just let it ring.  
  
 _Fat chance of that_ , Dom thinks, sighing as Arthur’s low, businesslike  _hello_  rumbles through them both.  
  
“ _Phoebe_?”  
  
At this, Dom wakes up a little more. He doesn’t know anyone named  _Phoebe_ —not even as an alias.  
  
“Yeah, no, it’s no problem, I was awake, anyway,” Arthur lies smoothly, managing not to sound like someone who had, in fact, been dead asleep not thirty seconds ago. In fact, he sounds downright tense, and feels that way in Dom’s arms. “What’s up?”  
  
Dom kisses the warm, soft nape of Arthur’s neck, sliding his hand down Arthur’s chest. As usual, they’ve both woken up hard. Unlike usual, it’s still pitch dark out.  
  
“A heart attack?” Arthur’s saying, shrugging off Dom’s embrace and sitting up. “What do you mean a  _heart attack_?”  
  
“Arthur?” Worried now, Dom sits up, and turns on his bedside lamp. Blinking in the dim, yellow light, he looks at Arthur, who seems, very suddenly, grim and older.  
  
“No—yeah, I know what the fuck a heart attack is, Phoebe, but whaddaya mean she. . . ? No. Fatal my ass--that’s not possible.” Arthur’s hand clenches on his Blackberry. “Fucking  _no_ , it wasn’t. It can’t have been. She was healthy as a goddamn horse—she—“  
  
Frowning, Dom puts his hand on Arthur’s back. He’s strung tight as piano wire, and flinches away from Dom’s touch like it’s fire.  
  
“Of course,” he’s saying, all business once more, though Dom can hear him swallowing and swallowing. “No. Yeah.  _No_ , don’t start . . . don’t start planning anything. I’ll do it when I get there . . . fine,  _we_ ’ll do it together. All of us. Just . . . yeah, don’t start till I get there . . . by noon, if I leave now. I should be able to find a flight. . . .”  
  
Listening to Arthur’s half of the conversation only creates more questions than it answers. But listen he does, as Arthur reels off a brief list of names and phone numbers to Phoebe-on-the-phone.  
  
“. . . yeah, Devante is in Tacoma, now. For the past six months . . . no, he didn’t tell me where he was, I found out for myself . . . just call it one of my skills and let it go, okay, Phoebs?”  
  
Arthur sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I know. I know. She was supposed to outlive us all. We always swore she would. . . .  
  
“Okay, yeah. Yeah. I’ll call before I leave and when I land, okay?” A bitter laugh. “An Irish one, of course. Free booze for family and friends, and everyone remembering all the good times.”  
  
Another laugh, this one softer, sadder. “Emmy’s gonna be the worst to tell. You want me to . . . yeah, I know I’m not exactly a people person, but . . . okay. Okay. I guess she was closer to you, anyway.”  
  
Arthur’s shoulders slump, and this time when Dom puts a hand on his back, Arthur leans into him. For a moment, anyway.  
  
“So I’ll talk to you in a few hours, okay? Alright. No—yeah. Okay. Bye.”  
  
Arthur ends the call and carefully places the Blackberry on his night table. Then he covers his face with his hands for nearly a minute. Dom pulls him close and hugs him tight.  
  
“Tell me,” he says gently, and Arthur shudders. But when he looks up, his face is dry and stony.  
  
“My mother died.”  
  
Then he’s pulling out of Dom’s arms and getting out of bed. In the low lighting, his nude body looks pale and small. Wraithlike.  
  
“My God, Arthur, I—I’m sorry,” Dom says softly, watching Arthur pace from one end of the bedroom to the other. He twitches jerkily, a nervous sort of shrug, and keeps pacing.  
  
“That was my foster sister, Phoebe, calling to let me know. She says it was a heart attack, sudden and quick—the kind that kills you before you even know you’re dead. Momma Jean didn’t feel a thing.”  
  
“Thank God for small favors,” Dom says, crossing himself more out of habit than belief. One of very few habits his own father had been around long enough to impart. “Still, I’m so sorry, Arthur.”  
  
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Arthur says, as if Dom’s the one who needs comforting. “Momma Jean wasn’t my birth mother, she was my foster mother. It’s not like. . . .“  
  
“How long did she raise you?” Dom interrupts to ask, and Arthur stops pacing to look at him. Shrugs that jerky shrug again and sighs.  
  
“Since I was four.”  
  
“Was she kind to you? Did she love you?”  
  
Arthur nods without hesitation. “She loved all her kids. Every last one of us.”  
  
“Then she was your mother.” Dom has no experience of mothers—at least not of having one, as his own had died long before he could remember her as anything other than a vague ache that never quite goes away—but he knows that the woman who raises a child with love and kindness is more than qualified to carry the title.  
  
Arthur drifts over to the bed and sits heavily. “The only mother I ever had, really. My birth mother never wanted me—put me up for adoption as soon as I was old enough to find her stashes and flush ‘em down the john. Momma Jean’s was the first and only home I ever got put in. The only home I ever had.”  
  
Dom reaches out, his hand hovering over Arthur’s back hesitantly. “May I touch you?”  
  
Arthur looks at Dom, surprised. “Of course. Always,” he answers irritably, as if Dom’s being silly. But when Dom’s hand settles on his back again, Arthur groans as if he's never been touched, and lets Dom hug him.  
  
“I told Phoebe I’d catch a plane to Jersey and be there by noon,” he says listlessly, tiredly. “I don’t suppose. . . .”  
  
“Try and stop me.”  
  
Arthur smiles a little for a moment, just a moment, fluttering and brief on Dom’s neck.  
  
“What about the kids?”  
  
“I don’t think I can find a sitter on such short notice. They'd have to come with us.” Dom pauses. “Though I can stay home with them, if that’d be better for you.”  
  
“No, no—they can come, too. I mean, it’s not gonna be a trip to Disney World, but there’ll be other kids there. My nieces and nephews. Most of them are about Phillippa’s age.”  
  
“Sounds like a plan, to me,” Dom says. Arthur turns a little to look up at him. His eyes are shining and deep with a mixture of grief and relief.  
  
“You know, I always figured I’d eventually tell you about . . . my childhood. And maybe one day, if you wanted, I could’ve taken you and the kids to meet her . . . God,  _why_  didn’t I take you to _meet her_?”  
  
Dom’s brow furrows. “Maybe because you weren’t ready? We’ve only been doing this . . . whatever this is for a couple months. We still have to figure out how we’re gonna tell the kids why Uncle Arthur sleeps in Daddy’s room instead of the guest room.”  
  
Arthur brushes gentle fingers down Dom’s cheek, searching his eyes. “You’re adorable, you know that? Jesus, she’d have loved you.”  
  
“That’s good to know.” Kissing Arthur’s palm, Dom sighs. “And if ever there was one word to describe me, ‘adorable’ would be that word.”  
  
“Indeed.” Arthur’s smile becomes genuine, and he leans up to kiss Dom. It starts out chaste, and turns into something else entirely, quickly, with Arthur straddling Dom’s legs and moaning into the kiss. He pulls Dom’s arms around him.  
  
“Arthur—“  
  
“I’m still slick from last night,” Arthur breathes, bearing Dom to the bed and rolling them over with calculated, precise strength. He looks up into Dom’s eyes, his own feverish and bright. “And yeah, I know I’m just displacing grief, but I really  _need_  to displace it, right now. Really need _you_.”  
  
Dom kisses Arthur’s forehead. “You had me at ‘still slick from last night.’”  
  
Arthur laughs, tears rolling down either side of his face. He wipes them away and wraps his legs around Dom’s sides. “C’mon, Dom. Fuck me.”  
  
Without wasting any more words, Dom arranges Arthur—who’s ridiculously bendy, something Dom’s had a lot of fun discovering—just so, and slides right in with one hard thrust. They both hiss, more tears leaking out of Arthur’s eyes. Dom kisses them away tenderly.  
  
“Did I hurt you?”  
  
“No, God . . .  _Dom_.” Arthur strains up toward Dom, kissing him and clenching around him as if unwilling to let him go long enough to pull out and thrust back in. “You feel so good . . . can we just . . . stay like this for a minute?”  
  
“Anything,” Dom whispers, leaning his forehead against Arthur’s. “We can do anything you want.”  
  
“Just wanna hold you.”  
  
“Okay.” He kisses Arthur softly, and Arthur returns it just as softly. He tastes like toothpaste and tears, and can’t stop sniffling. His arms around Dom are hot and panic-tight, just like his body, and Dom groans, unable to help a small, reflexive rocking of his hips. Arthur gasps, and does some rocking of his own.  
  
“God, Dom, how can this still feel so perfect?” he moans, his body relaxing enough for Dom to pull out just a bit. When he pushes back in, angled just so, Arthur arches up to meet him, shaking and panting.  
  
“Because it’s  _us_ ,” Dom says simply.  
  
Since their first time with each other, their bodies have always known how to move together, how to fit together in ways that are both startling and familiar, sinful and sweet. Now is no different, Arthur clutching desperately at Dom, and Dom murmuring in Arthur’s ear how good he feels. . . .  
  
(It’s the kind of sex that’s only  _fucking_  because they’re both men, and too self-conscious to call it what it  _really_  is.)  
  
They don’t last especially long, Arthur coming first with a wide-eyed, softly sighed  _ohhh, Dom_ , his body pulsing and throbbing around Dom—who comes shortly thereafter with a grunt and a whispered  _fuck_.  
  
Afterwards, they lay there, Dom collapsed on Arthur, Arthur stroking Dom’s hair. It’s peaceful and so damn  _wonderful_  despite . . . everything. Dom doesn’t even realize Arthur’s crying until he stops shaking but Arthur doesn’t.  
  
“Honey?” It just slips out as Dom rolls off of Arthur. It’s what he used to call Mal in the privacy of their bedroom, whenever she was upset about something.  
  
Arthur’s face is still stony, but tears are running down his face again, leaking out of his squinched-shut eyes. His nose and cheeks are a hectic red Dom recognizes from when Phillippa or James fight to not cry.  
  
“I hadn’t called her in four months, Dom—hadn’t been to visit her in  _years_. Not since. . . .”  
  
“Since I went on the run?”  
  
Arthur nods, opening his eyes. They’re as red as his cheeks, squinting and swollen. Swept away on his own feelings of guilt—at taking Arthur away from his family, at stealing two years of the man’s life away, at  _all_  that he’s taken from Arthur, even if unknowingly, that he can never repay—Dom leans his head against Arthur’s again, tears springing to his own eyes. He hastily blinks them away. “I’m so sorry, honey. So, so sorry.”  
  
“No, don’t—it’s not your fault.” Arthur cups Dom’s face in his hands and kisses the corner of his mouth. “We’ve been back States-side for how many months, now? Six? I could’ve visited her at any time. Any time. But I didn’t. And she  _died_  thinking that . . . that I didn’t even care enough to fucking  _pick up the phone_  more than twice a year.”  
  
“No, Arthur—“ Dom pulls Arthur into his arms just as Arthur breaks like a storm. Like a piece of spun glass.  
  
At first it’s just shaking, so violent, Dom’s afraid Arthur’s having a seizure. But then the sobbing starts, raw, hoarse, unlovely. Arthur’s wet, hot face is pressed to Dom’s right shoulder, one hand clenched on Dom’s left like a drowning man’s.  
  
“Shh.” Dom rocks Arthur just like he would one of his kids. “I won’t lie and tell you everything’s gonna be okay. The truth is, it may not ever be. What you feel now is gonna lessen and lighten over time, but it’ll never completely go away. The feeling that maybe if you’d loved harder or better. . . .”  
  
“She might still b-be here,” Arthur finishes, fresh sobs shaking him. Dom nods, kissing his hair, his forehead, any part of Arthur he can reach. “I j-just . . . I never  _lost_  anyone b-before. I didn’t know it’d hurt so  _b-bad_!”  
  
Arthur says something else, but Dom can’t make it out for the sobbing. So he simply holds Arthur, and lets him shake and weep as he will. He murmurs whatever comforting noises would soothe his children when their hearts were broken.  
  
The things he didn’t get to murmur to them when their mother died.  
  
False dawn is briefly lighting the sky before Arthur’s sobs become hitches, become silence.  
  
“I gotta . . . fuck, I gotta find us a flight to Jersey,” Arthur husks suddenly, still sniffling. “I told Phoebe I’d be there by noon—“  
  
“I can find a flight for us,” Dom says gently. “Hell, if anyone can find a quick flight out of town, it’s me, right?”  
  
“You and Orbitz.” Arthur laughs a little.  
  
Neither of them move for awhile, however. Dom thinks Arthur may have fallen asleep until Arthur stirs then sits up, wiping his face and glancing at Dom. He looks young and cried-out, his face a red, wet wreck, his eyes painfully swollen and red-looking.  
  
“Okay. You book the flight.”  
  
“Alright.” Dom scoots to the front of the bed and stands up, pulling Arthur to his feet as well, and into his arms. Arthur tries to smile, but his face does that crumpling-thing at the last second, and he’s crying again, not resisting when Dom pulls him close and hugs him tight.  
  
“I knew I shouldn’t have started,” Arthur breathes, tear-logged laughs mixing with sobs. “This is why I never cry. Once I start, I can’t seem to stop.”  
  
“Who says you have to?”  
  
“ _I_  do.” Arthur pulls away a little, shaking his head. His face is still wet, and his chest heaving, but he’s stopped sobbing. “I can’t be a basketcase now. Maybe later, after we’ve planned the funeral, and the wake, but right now . . . I’ve gotta hold it together. Help me hold it together, Dom. Please?”  
  
Arthur’s eyes are begging for something. For instructions, for something to do to take his mind off his grief. So Dom pulls on the mantle he’d thought to have taken off forever. The mantle of _Cobb_ , the selfish, commanding bastard who’d taken and taken from Arthur since the day they met and never, ever gave anything back.  
  
It’s least he can do and be, for now. For Arthur.  
  
“You’re gonna take a quick shower, and I’m gonna get started on finding us a flight to Newark Airport. Okay?”  
  
Arthur nods wiping at his nose impatiently. “And then?”  
  
“And then you can get us packed, and I’ll get the kids packed.”  
  
“Alright, Dom.” Arthur sighs, putting his hands on Dom’s chest and leaning in to kiss his cheek. “I love you.”  
  
“I love you, too.”  
  
When Arthur smiles this time, his face doesn’t crumple, but the smile is mirthless. “You don’t have to say that just because I did. Or just because . . . you feel bad for me.”  
  
Dom brushes away the last of Arthur’s tears. “I’m not.  _I love you_ , Arthur Fisher. You don’t have to believe it right away, but I want you to know.” He pulls Arthur close for another kiss. He still tastes like tears and toothpaste. “Now hit the shower before I ravish you again.”  
  
Arthur snorts. “So that means I’ve got—what, another hour, hour and a half?”  
  
“Ha-ha.” Dom smacks Arthur’s ass lightly. “Go on.”  
  
The smile Dom gets before Arthur goes into the bathroom is trembling, but genuine. And when the bathroom door shuts between them, Dom sits heavily on the bed for a few minutes, face buried in his hands, listening to the shower run.


End file.
